Short fiction wins

May 23, 2013

So, Lydia Davis has won the 2013 International Man Booker Prize, fuck fuck fuckity fuck – now everyone will be reading her, and talking about her, and she won’t be my secret favourite short story author EVER anymore.

I ordered The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis (Abe Books) after reading this review by Tania Hershman in The Short Review (originally posted in 2010), and this (beautiful hardback) collection is now a permanent fixture in the stack of books I keep by my bed.

I love Davis’s writing for its precision, its economy and because it defies categorisation. I love reading her because – among other delights – doing so has given me the freedom to experiment as a writer, to be myself and to define for myself what short fiction can be.

Congratulations to Lydia Davis, this is fantastic news for all readers and writers of short fiction, I will just have to learn to share you. [And I wish I was able to hear you read down the road at Hay Festival tomorrow but I have to take care of a very poorly elderly person instead.]

Other good news, my own this time, this week I have a very short story – Blind Spot – up at The View From Here. A small win for me!